


the laughing mannequin

by enmity



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: F/F, Innocent Sin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 13:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13571193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: She was hopeless, really.





	the laughing mannequin

In the morning, three days after the end of the world, Ulala woke up. She was curled up and alone under the blankets, feeling cold, and it was with mild discomfort that she tossed them aside, already thinking of the day’s routine. There was trash overflowing from the bins that she had to take out, crummy breakfast she had to make – had she remembered to restock the fridge? she hoped so – and Maya, who she’d have to shake awake from inside the comfort of her futon, warning her she’d be late for work, or worse, that Ulala would go ahead and use up all the hot water if she insisted on being a slug and sleeping in like that on a Monday.

There was no distinctive pitter-patter of footsteps outside, no sound of coffee being brewed or the television tuned in to some corny variety show outside, so she must still be asleep. Maya was hopeless, really. There was something tired about the fondness, a bone-deep exhaustion that cut, deep and dry through the marrow, and usually it was easy to ignore, effortless to hide beneath rosy high-school nostalgia and her smallest, flimsiest of smiles; but this morning she remembered, lying with her wrist pressed against her forehead and the throbbing beginning of a headache – maybe a hangover – and it took her aback, the aching suddenness of it. Like how she’d felt, she would imagine, those times she’d seen her face bare in the mirror in bad mornings, looking sallow under the bathroom’s unflattering light.

Then the moment passed, the feeling crumpling with it, and Ulala shook her head softly, getting up to fix the bed.

Her room was dark; a bright, narrow strip of light sliced the floor in clean halves when she cracked open the door separating her pristine room from Maya’s disarrayed one. Outside, the sliding glass partition leading to the balcony brought in the sunlight, but Maya’s room had the lights turned off. The morning sky bled a strange shade of pale. Ulala kneeled next to the covered futon and slid her hand under the blanket, expecting as much as any other day the warmth of Maya's shoulders, the steady rise and fall of her breathing.

“Oi, Ma-ya. It’s time to get up already,” she goaded, gently, to the empty air slipping between her clenched fingers. Empty, and silent. She shuddered, holding onto the bedding instead. “It’s getting late. What’ll your boss say if you don’t turn up on time today? I swear…”

Empty and still and quiet and dark, like the way the world had been when it ended, and for a long moment, Ulala was too.

“Hey, Ma-ya, are you sick? Say something.”

When there was no reply but the winded sounds of her own breathing desperately hoping not to turn into sobs, only then did she remember.


End file.
